Server Blade Summit: Session 105

Interfaces Panel

Advanced Switching Interface (ASI) Legacy Plus

David MayhewStarGen

If you cannot do the old stuff you will not be allowed to do the new stuff.

or

Legacy support is not everything:On a list of the 10 most important interface

characteristics, other capabilities are prominently featured in the second half of the list.

Standards based solutions are essential.

Which Legacy

Load/Store – PCI ? Local intra-computer communication interface.

Packets – Ethernet ? Inter-computer interface Socket compatibility equally important

Packets – SCSI / SAS / Fibre Channel ? Storage interface

Data Streams – TDM ? Voice/video interfaces

ASI provides transparent legacy support for all four, plus any number of additional legacy protocols.

Future (Plus) Interface Goals High Availability

Scalability More than dozens of endpoints

Convergence Merging of computational and communications equipment.

Decomposition Separation of CPUs from I/O devices One-to-one CPU to I/O device mapping One-to-many CPU to I/O device mapping

Sharing/Virtualization Many-to-one CPU to I/O device mapping Many-to-one virtual/system image to I/O device mapping

ASI supports for all five future system requirements.

A quick look at shared I/O

Load / store (PCI) register compatible shared I/O model.

Packet stream shared I/O model.

There are other models, but not that can be discussed in the 90 seconds remaining in this presentation.

Shared I/O Shared Register Interface

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Reg Set 0

Reg Set 2

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Shared I/O Shared Gateway

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Enet ASI

Enet ASI

ASI supports Legacy Plus

Keep your existing software base.

Add new capabilities using legacy transparent or advanced interface features.

Do the above in a fully standards based interface. Most ASI specifications are now at a 1.1

revision level